


The Snow Queen

by RedChucks



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Snow Queen crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-05-05 02:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14607273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/pseuds/RedChucks
Summary: I can’t believe I’m writing this. My apologies if and when it fails. But here at least is a first chapter for the Boosh/Snow Queen crossover no one really wants, except me of course.





	1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a sprite. Not a sprite in a fey, Fantasia, sort of way, more in a belly wont fit in his undersized tights, messy nest of brown curls made or briars on his head, and twinkling bright eyes, and a grin like sin, sort of way. And the American accent, well, who knows from where he pinched that. Sprites can be strange, and carry out mischief according to their whims, which they pluck from the ether without apparent plan. And one day, long ago, the Sprite did so, and created for himself... a mirror.

But of course, being a sprite of a mischievous nature and chaotic whimsy, this was no ordinary oval of silvered glass. For whatever it faced it did not reflect true but showed only the worst image that one could imagine. So fair princes we’re turned to shammy cloth men, handsome princesses turned to ancient faced, nylon gownèd demons, and though it was only true in the false mirror’s face, given time and persistence on the part of the sprite, he brought those of fine face to ruin, until they believed what they saw and were trapped by their own injured vanity.

For so very long the sprite carried on with his caper, until even the glee of upsetting the fit and the fine began to wane and he began to look further afield for his delight. 

“Please?” begged the mirror, with that strange sentience unique to magical mirrors. “Please, torment me no more? My silver is tarnished. My heart is sore!” 

But the sprite took no heed.

“How ‘bout you shut your little glass lips and I point you at the six winged, many-eyes men!” he bellowed with a shake of his bilious jowls.

There was a pause as the mirror deciphered the speech, for sprites are not known for their eloquence.

“The angels?” they asked, their panes all atremble, for the sprite was grinning most wickedly. 

“Yeah, the six winged, many-eyes men with the gold hair, and nipples like my grandmother’s engagement rings! That’s what I said!”

And the mirror wailed as the sprite flew higher, soaring up beyond the clouds to the place where the angels perch and sun their white wings. But as they rose toward heaven the mirror began to shake, humming until the sprite could barely hold it. For it had been formed of malice and heartlessness, and there is no place for such things in heaven, and before the sprite could get it close to an angel’s face, it shattered, flying apart in a million pieces and showering down upon the unsuspecting world below. 

Wherever the pieces fell, though the mirror’s soul wept at the sight, ugliness was sewn, bringing a deeper darkness to an already troubled world. If a shard fell upon to a flower its leaves grew sharp and it’s stem sprouted thorns, until it was declared a weed, a dandelion, and ripped from the earth. Worse still was if a shard should fall upon a person, for the human mind is fickle and easily swayed. 

If the glass fell in to an eye it would cause a kind of blindness, a distortion to the vision until everything in the world seemed unbearably and irredeemably ugly, enough to cause the most deep despair and a fear of the world surveyed. It was a terrible affliction, and yet nothing compared with the horror of a shard that found its way within a human heart. The angels feared what might happen if such a fate should befall some hapless mortal, watching ever vigilant, all the while knowing they were powerless to help if such a tragedy were to occur. For they knew that if a sliver from the magic mirror were to pierce a breast, it would turn that person’s heart to ice, until their veins ran not with hot blood but with sleet. Such a person, they feared, would be irredeemably lost, for who could fight against magic so malicious? so possessed with spite as the mirror of the naughty sprite. 

And what of that sprite? you may well ask, if so inclined by some sense of justice or narrative need. Well, what of that sprite? Why he ran and he flew from the mess he had made, perhaps with some fear, but with grin still in place, to make other mischief, pernicious and mean, unpunished, for that is the way of the world. And what a world it became, what a one it now is. 

Come with me now, to the world of the Mighty Boosh.

***


	2. Chapter 2

Now in a little corner of this world, far beyond any thought of angels and sprites (though not quite out of their reach), there lived two zoo keepers who suddenly found themselves short of a zoo. It had been a fantastical place, seeming to ever sit in a gentle Autumn, regardless of the season in the wider world. Leaves of orange brown eternally gathered around the iron gates, and the folk who lived and worked there made a point of not working too hard, and were mostly content. Which is not to say that there was great peace at the Zooniverse, for so it was called, not by the stretch of any imagination, even a most flexible one. 

Indeed it so happened that this strange inner city menagerie sat upon what we might plainly call a magnet for the magical and the strange. Monsters and oddities were close to commonplace, the zoo itself would not have existed otherwise, but alas, just as bubblegum beasts and shamen were drawn to that strange spot, so too were the last of shards of the sprite’s ill-made mirror. 

Having drifted in to proximity the pieces rained down upon the unsuspecting zoo so that it began to freeze and to burn all at once and by turns until the tenuous reality of its foundations shook and shattered. And in to this portentous maelstrom entered our two dear zoo keepers, the joint and joined protagonists of our tale. Their names were Howard Moon and Vince Noir.

Despite an outward, commonplace appearance (at least on the part of Moon) these two had also been drawn to the Zooniverse, creatures of magic with a human vaneer, and in that strange place they had found home in a way not found before. Now this pair, this odd couple so incredibly alike, had grown up together (in a manner of speaking) and had been the best of friends through thick and thin, through every fight. Through sickness and in health, through an incidence of accidental death and in Monkey Hell; and nothing on the earth had been able to separate them. The angels loved to watch their pair’s misadventures and antics and flights of strange fancy, and had observed with no small measure of delight as that night they had met and defeated a witch through the power of whimsy and wit, and of luck. But now, as they sunbathed, they stared quite aghast as Howard and Vince arrived just in time to witness the death of their much beloved zoo.

“No!” Vince cried out, ever emotive, impulsive, and he darted forward, arms outstretched, reaching toward the burning rubble as it sizzled and bubbled and fumed.

“No!” Howard cried, holding him back, holding him tight, large hand on his heart, spying the final explosion before it came.

For the largest and last piece of the mirror, having fallen finally, had done so at great speed and had broken in two, and those two pieces, under the pressure of the burning spite, freezing disdain and churning, exposed and raw, magic, exploded forth one final time, directly toward Howard and Vince.

“No!” cried the angels, watching from above, white wings tinged bronze as they sat too long under the sun. Hands outstretched and golden halos glowing they reached forth to slow the splinters. But alas...

“Ow!” Vince exclaimed, bringing hands to his face. “My eye!”

For the first shard had hit like a dart at a bullseye, lodging deep, invisible, insidious, and cold as ice within the delicate blue of his iris. 

The angels waited, breath bated, to see if he would scream again, for in the horror of the moment just past they had not seen where the second splinter struck. They watched as Howard Moon gave a shiver but he made no sound as he turned to examine Vince’s eye with care, running his hand down the younger man’s face in an act of affection which Vince leaned into for a moment before jolting away violently. 

“Get off, Howard, your hands are cold as ice! You’ve even made my chest cold. What’s wrong with you? Ow.” 

Vince looked down, tugging at the collar of his shirt until he had revealed a strange, bluish mark over his left lung, tutting as if it were an annoyance rather than an anomaly or something to set his whole life on an unforeseen course. He did not see Howard raise his long slender hand to examine the blue mark in its centre, as if something had passed straight through his palm and out the other side without breaking the skin. It felt so frightfully cold, and he tucked it away, feeling the cold seep through him, not knowing that the cause of his discomfort was a final shard of a mirror made to magnify all that was vile and unspeakable in the world. 

It crept through him, tasting his anxiety, feeding on it and feeding it until a distaste for intruders in his personal space blossomed in to hideous paranoia. And the splinter in Vince’s eye did the same, distorting his grief for his home until all he could see was a ruin of twisted and screaming metal, ugly and unworthy of his presence. The pleasant memories were nowhere to be found, already frozen in the face of the ill-begot zoo and he found himself looking up with a sneer unbecoming to such a rosy face.

“What are you wearing?”

Howard turned his attention to his uniform: the comforting green, the beige so sensible and soft. What was wrong with with it? he wondered as panic began to unfold. What was wrong? What had he done?

“It’s my uniform,” he blinked down, button eyes looking shiftily from the angelic face to their matching attire. “It’s the same as yours.”

Vince’s face hardened at the statement and Howard felt somehow sure that in his blue eyes he saw a flash of white ice, though the thought could not be true, even if the look Vince gave him was far from nice. 

“Well it’s ugly, yeah. And the zoo’s history. So it’s got to go. I need to go change.”

“But Vince,” Howard breathed the words so softly, the truth of their lost livelihoods sinking in more slowly than it had for Vince. “All our stuff was in the keepers hut. It’s just... gone.”

The silence clattered down like cymbals dropped from a hight and no words could be found, when once they been a constant music between them, and the two looked away, shivering in sync as a wall began to form, an ice that could not be seen but was felt as clearly as the affection once had been. 

All seemed lost in that moment, as autumn’s nostalgic sepia tones faded to the grey of an overdue winter, until a singular survivor emerged, barefoot and turban askew, to gaze at them both with dark, seeing eyes, too large in one so small of stature. 

“Guess you’ll be needing somewhere to crash for a bit then?” he lisped sleepily, not seeming to sense the stunned silence of the two child-men before him. “You can have the spare room at mine but you do your own cooking and steer clear of my potions cabinet. Deal?” 

Moments later the three were walking away from the remains of the shattered Zooniverse, though they didn’t go far, and while winter dragged slowly, over months and years, they were drawn back again and again, in to proximity with magic, each time darker and more menacing, more than they could handle alone, more than they could handle together.

Until one day the shard of ice that had found its way under the skin of Vince Noir’s chest finally met its mark. It hit his heart. And on that day, far away, the Snow Queen sensed the moment and shivered with delight.


	3. Chapter 3

Come with us now as we travel deeper. Come with us now as we examine the boy, Vince.

Deep within the jungle of his mind, among the juvenile commercial jingles and the detailed knowledge of how soft different animals’ fur was to sleep against, lay the memory of the day when Vince had first seen the creature known as the Snow Queen. He had been a child, slightly soiled, small and skinned-kneed, no older than six years, when the humid tropics of his Indian home were disrupted by the advent of a chill in the air, announcing the arrival of a guest in the tree top house of Vince’s mysterious guardian. Vince had darted away to peer at the visitor from behind his door, curious despite his fear, and had been rewarded with the terrific sight. 

Indeed it had instilled terror in his young heart, to see a woman with skin that was so much paler than any he had ever seen before, with eyes as pale a blue as his own, eyelashes heavy with frost. Her robes were woven from ice and snow, intricate designs ever-moving, ever changing, as silver snowflakes settled and spiralled about her, a lace unlike any other. Frost had skittered about in the wake of her steps and ice had hung in the air when she breathed. Vince wondered if it was breath at all for somehow to his young mind it seemed the very opposite. 

She had not stayed long, only long enough to speak with Vince’s guardian, the retired Ferryman, and Vince had been too timid in his youth to ask who the woman was who walked and breathed winter. The animals had told him the truth as they knew it to be, spinning tales of the queen of the north, the mistress of that season so foreign to their equatorial home, and Vince’s mind had been enraptured by the idea of her beauty.

He never truly forgot her, though the image of her face faded and eventually retired to the depths of his mind with the rest of his childhood memories. Still, whenever snow fell and silver-white flakes crowned his hair he thought of her beauty and he shivered. 

After the incident that spelt the end of the Zooniverse it never seemed to snow enough for Vince and he craved the cold, though at first he hid it well. He had always been, from his first day in the world of man, something of an expert in the art of the masquerade, and so, as the years progressed he made use of the skill to hide his longing for the cold. Too often he found himself waking, nervous with anticipation, only to scowl in disappointment at the sight of rain at his window instead of the snowflakes he longed for. Sometimes it seemed that the force of the rain had increased over time, as his mood had worsened; the optimism he had once been known for washed away by the torrent of heavens’ tears, and no matter how he fought against the anger in his mind and bad taste in his mouth, it won more often than not. 

For the splinter of glass in his eye changed him, stealing his delight in beauty and replacing it with a mundane and colourless world, where nothing was clean and the tasks of everyday living became monsters with fangs and claws; bin bag beasts filled with refuse and waste. Even his own reflection no longer pleased him, when once his vanity had been so well known as to be considered an asset. Now there was no fashion or fad that could satisfy him, and he could not bear his own face, nor the the body which seemed to eternally disappoint. He became crueler with accelerated force, both to himself and to others, and could not seem to find for himself an escape, a horror he had never before known. Nevertheless his heart struggled on, determined to cling to what it had known, to the love that was shown, the love of Howard Moon. 

He was aware, even through the thickening ice coating the insides of his ribs, that there was only so much that the man could take and that the once obvious affection had waned, like embers dying in the cold of the early morning hours, until there was nothing left. At times Vince would reach out, thinking to find some pleasure at least in the coldness between them, but to his touch Howard’s skin seemed only tepid, and time and again he found himself recoiling, before the ‘Don’t Touch Me’ refrain could even leave Howard’s lips. He remembered there had been love once, a greedy heat that had fired his blood, but the memory had melted away, further lost to him than those of his childhood, and the idea of love began to seem foreign, unfathomable, and deeply distasteful.

The kiss however... the kiss had come close to warming him entirely, and had left in its wake a confusion and vertigo that the rooftop alone could not answer to. Until he had fallen, and the landing had pushed the shard deeper, so deep that the next blow, the fall from the stage, had been what was needed to send the sliver of the shattered mirror, and all the malice therein, in to the very centre of Vince Noir’s bruised heart.

He had barely noticed when Howard Moon left his side, and laughed at his return, though with no happiness and nothing so warm as joy. And he felt nothing when the broken man stood before him and confessed that despite the fear of rejection that he felt was imminent, he loved Vince, with all his heart, or what was left of it.

“I’m going out,” Vince scowled, lips pale and glossed with frost, his eyes glacial and empty. “Don’t wait up.”

And with that he turned on his white, stacked heel, and walked out in to the flurry of snow that was finally falling. A sledge was waiting, and a woman, and Vince shivered at the sight of the overgrown, silver dogs, ready and waiting to pull him away, to return him to where he belonged. 

The Snow Queen, in greeting, brought her long fingered hands to his face, caressing the skin that had paled so beautifully before she kissed first his cheek, then his forehead then temple, until finally she met his lips with her own. And with that the life that Vince Noir had led was erased, like snow ‘cross an ice-swept plain. The zoo, and Naboo, Bollo, the band... and Howard. All was gone and Vince shivered as the ice bled out through his body, along every vein, until all that he knew was the terrifying cold of the winter ice and the Snow Queen’s lips. And in a flurry of driving wind and snow they were gone, and Howard Moon was alone.


	4. Chapter 4

Howard mourned when Vince walked away that day, and through the night, and well in to the next week, for no one knew what had become of the man who had once been called sunshine yet had turned in to ice. And when spring came suddenly, after so many years absence, there could be no rejoicing, not for Howard. Peace never came to poor Howard.

He knew his fears had a basis in fact whenever he looked upon the tranquil face of his landlord and saw the concern in his eyes. The ape, his familiar, muttered and cursed that the omens were dark and the feeling was bad, but Howard heard but one sound: the words of the diminutive shaman, that Vince’s soul could not be found. 

“It’s like he never existed,” he whispered, voice low and full of woe. “Like he was carried off, or sunk perhaps. Like his spirit was drowned. I don’t know.”

“Maybe I should check the river,” Howard muttered, not prepared for the spark that entered the small shaman’s dark, polished glass, eyes.

“You can ask,” he replied. “But you’ll need some supplies. And a gift or two. Give me an hour, then we’ll go.”

Howard blinked and felt the ever-present, prickling fear send it’s tendrils of ice through his skin, but nodded and went to his room, to pack the essentials: a scarf, and some cheese, and his trumpet, of course. Then when the hour was up he set out for the river with his housemates in tow, to beg of the river an answer or clue.

“I got a bad feeling about this,” mumbled the reanimated ape, the shaman familiar, in a voice deep and foreboding. But Naboo only rolled his eyes and readjusted his turban over his silken hair.

“When don’t you?” he snapped, his frown focused on the murky river water. “It’s not like this is subtle.”

For upon the water’s face was a skein - a shimmering, sequinned scum - and Howard felt his bones shake at the sight so painful in its blunt imagery. The story in the town was that Vince Noir had drowned, pulled down by the weight of the synthetic fibres, beneath the ice before the thaw. 

Howard hated the thought, it was no fitting death for one who had experienced so much of life, who had been a creature of light and warmth and sun. Or at least, had once. He wondered at the suddenness of the springtime thaw, how it had coincided with Vince’s disappearance, how the very world seemed warped out of shape, forced in to a narrative impasse. 

Naboo elbowed him sharp in the side, unrepentant in the face of Howard’s glare, though to be fair it was a trifling thing and Naboo has never been cowed by the looms and looks of those taller than he. Howard took the cue and stepped forward to the river’s edge, and asked with a stutter and a blush on his cheeks if the river had taken Vince down to his grave, but no answer came. 

“Here,” lisped the shaman in his velveteen voice. “Take this bag and its contents to help on your way. Then get in the boat and ask again.”

Howard took the strangely shaped cloth bag and lifted his own pack, trepidation warring his intrepid spirit, but for once in his life his true spirit won, and Howard Moon stepped in to the boat.

“Did you drown Vince?” he asked softly, ignoring his own, aging, wave-rippled reflection.

The water did not reply. 

“I need to find Vince,” Howard spoke more clearly. “Did you take him away? Do you know where he is?” 

The waves lapped the side of the unsteady boat as if in response, and Naboo nodded likewise. 

“I need to find Vince,” Howard repeated. “He is precious to me. He is my friend. I-“

“The river needs proof,” Naboo spoke from the bank. “Vince is precious to you? So prove it!”

Howard blanched as the anger behind the words. What gift could he give? Proof of his love? A sacrifice worthy of the quest he now saw he would soon undertake. When had the boat drifted out from the shore? 

He knelt in the boat, as it rocked in the waves, opened his pack, heart now lodged in his throat, and removed with a reverence reserved for the holy, the one thing he had thought to bring that was worthy. 

“I need to find Vince,” he whispered to the river. “He is precious to me. I love him most deeply. I shall give you my most prized possession as a gift if you can take me to him.”

And with that, eyes clenched shut, hands atremble, breathing harsh, Howard dropped his old trumpet down in to the waves. They grabbed it most fiercely, licking and lapping, and devoured the instrument whole, whilst back on the bank Bollo and Naboo watched in wonder at what they saw, unsure of what to do next.

“Bollo not believe it,” the ape muttered in awe. “Harold loves ugly bugle. Why are waves clapping hands?”

For indeed they were, or so it seemed - slapping in delight like a crowd at a show. And the boat it was spinning and the water was churning and before Naboo could open his mouth to reply the river was carrying the small boat away, and poor Howard with it, eyes now wide with fear. But Naboo knew no words were needed. He had known it for years, how Howard loved Vince. It was almost as obvious as Vince’s own love, his sweet adoration for his Howard Moon. 

He waved as he watched the boat drift away, and smiled so serenely as the tears hit Howard’s cheeks. And Howard, dear Howard, he cried and he cried, as the river took him far from the world that he knew. And while he felt in his heart it would lead him to Vince, the cold creeping fear would not be convinced. 

The boat traveled on, it seemed hours and days, until the boat bumped a bank that was foreign and strange, at a high, walled in garden full of flowers and birds. He climbed from the boat and thanked it soundly, and the river too doubly, and then turned, at a voice, that made him shiver...

“Helloooooooooooo.”


	5. Chapter 5

There are things one must know about witches. 

Some are wicked and cruel and green. Some are green yet not truly wicked. Some are given the faces of the ones we fear, to justify prejudice and perjury. Some lure children, some have no toes and turn said children in to mice... but such cannot be said of all witches. Some are truly good and use their magic for the betterment of the lowly, oppressed and infirm. Some brew healing teas and worship the moon, but most, it must be acknowledged, are what might be called morally ambiguous, much like the general population of humanity, and so it was with the witch that greeted Howard with her long ‘Helloooooo’ when his boat bumped the bank at the edge of her garden.

“Hello?” he replied with some fear, for she seemed somehow familiar, and while his memory could not place her his mind at large was screaming in cowardly terror that they had crossed paths before and that this woman was not to be trusted. 

And it was right, of course. For the enchantress had been drawn to Howard on more than one occasion, his innate magic akin to a perfume for those so inclined, and she had longed to seduce him, to feed off his power, but had been unsuccessful at every encounter. Her true skill lay in memory removal, and this skill she had practiced upon our poor hero’s head at each of their meetings before.

“Welcome Howard,” she purred darkly, guiding him within her high walled garden and shutting the gate and bolting it sure. “Welcome to my garden of earthly delights. Take your ease, lie you down, let me take off your... coat.”

And Howard, though jostled along so unwitting, was possessed of a protective paranoia that sprang fast in to action at the woman’s touch. 

“How do you know my name?” 

There was beat, a pause, a moment when the tale might have changed and Howard awoken from the enchantment that the witch had been weaving about him... but alas it was not to be.

“Uhh... it’s written on your bag there, you see? Howard Moon. Plain as day. Now, what has brought you down my way?” So spoke the Lady Eleanor, for such was her name, if you care to know, as around about our hero’s tousled head, she wove her spell to make him tell her his heart and then make him forget.

And so Howard told her of Vince. The boy who conversed with birds and with beasts, and who got on with monsters and bears, who dressed like a rainbow in sequins and stars, with eyes like the sky in the summertime. He told of how he’d confessed his love, how Vince had repaid him with scorn, how he’d disappeared, and how Howard had feared the worst. 

“But the river brought me here,” he finished the tale. “Have you seen my Vince?”

“Seen who?” the enchantress asked, settling her most powerful spell upon him. 

Howard frowned in endearing bewilderment, but did not reply, for he could not recall his own words. The Lady Eleanor smiled, reclining upon the moss of her boudoir, and gestured for Howard to join her, long nails like talons entreating. As he lay down beside her she let her smile grow wider, stroking his hair as he rapidly blinked, his mind overthrown by the spell. But there was no thought of Vince in his spell-muddled mind, and the enchantress had banished the creatures and birds, to allow no reminder of Howard’s true love.

He lay still as the lady above him did move to remove first his coat then his shirt, and peppered his skin, sun freckled and pale, with the marks of her lips, falsely red. And she gave no pause until from afar a chime did give sound, like the shimmer of rain.

“My alarm!” the witch cried and she scowled, “curse those crows!” But then turned to her captive with triumph and lust. “Stay right where you are little boy, little man, until Mummy can come back and kiss you aaaaallllllll the way down.”

And with that she was off, with a wiggle of her hips, and Howard felt sick from the flood in his mind. The crows fluttered round him as he pulled at his shirt, pulled himself to his feet, pulled his pack on his back, their black glossy feathers reminding him so of another’s glossy locks, though their name still escaped him, save for that title beloved.

“Little man,” he mumbled as he stumbled to the path. 

“Little Man!” cawed the crows, with a sound like a laugh. 

For they had not been banished with the other birds, no crow can be, they obey neither magic nor law, and they showed him the way to the garden’s far wall and the door set within, and they hurried him through it as behind came the din of the witch. For she knew she’d been tricked and flew in to a rage but Howard fled on through a wilderness wild until he tripped down a hill and tumbled at speed with limbs askew to a pond made of mud.

“Little Man,” he murmured, as the crows settled round. “Vince.” The crows nodded. “We need to find Vince.”

“Then we better get a flap along,” the smallest crow replied, to which Howard, in response, fainted dead away and so stayed through the night, and until the next day.


	6. Chapter 6

“What shall we do if he will not wake?” came the caw that brought Howard back to the wakeful world.

“What shall we do if he but faints again?” came another squawk, in such a way that it seemed quite a whisper. 

“Peck his eyes out maybe,” came a third voice, though voice be an insufficient descriptor.

For Howard awoke to the talk of the crows, and with desperate fear, both at the planning he heard and that he heard it at all.

“Please don’t peck out my eyes!” he exclaimed as he rose from the ground, though his head span in sitting. “Please don’t kill me, I’ve got so much to give! I’ve got to find Vince!” and it seemed that the crows chuckled as they fluffed up their feathers and hopped within pecking distance of his ripped knees.

“Oh we know,” said the smallest. “We know about Vince. We are children of the Ferryman, same as he. And we know about you. You are safe, I assure you, Howard T. J. Moon.”

One of the murder gave a tut at those words, though it seems an impossible sound for such a bird to form, and when Howard dared to look its way it rolled its black bead eye at him drolly.

“No point in pecking your eyes anyway,” it told him with undue sharpness. “They’re too small to satisfy even an egg-fresh chick. And the Ferryman would not be best pleased. He has bade us to take you to Vince.”

Howard stared at the birds, thoughts a-swirl in his mind. For so long had he wished covetously to have Vince’s gift, but to hear the crows speak, with human tone, made him sick to the stomach and weak to the bone. And it seemed as he sat, heavy caked in dry mud, that he needed be wary and better on his guard. So shifting his weight, making ready to flee, he began to count the birds, muttering under his moustache as he did.

“One is for sorrow, two for mirth, three for... a wedding? Four for a birth? Or is three for a girl, and four for a boy? Oh, god how many are there, they keep moving!”

For indeed the crows were flapping and fluttering, keeping him ever circled, and as the smallest bird hopped up then to stand on his heart, Howard fell down with a start, and a gasp.

“There are so many versions of that rhyme, my friend,” it squawked, turning its head from side to side, to look at him from every angle, reminding Howard of Vince at his vanity in days long gone. “You should be wary of what you’re told.”

Howard nodded, but his eyes continued their darting and counting, despite his fear, and his mouth continued its muttering, so at length the crow sighed and strutted to stand with its claws just above his throat. 

“Try this one for size:   
One for sorrow, two for mirth,  
three for a wedding, four for a birth.  
Five for silver, six for gold,   
seven for a secret that must not be told.   
Eight for heaven, nine for hell,  
and ten... for the Devil hersel’.  
Does that satisfy you? We each have a different role, when the time comes to fly, that is true, but you are in no danger, Howard Moon, I tell you again. We have come to help you find Vince. The Ferryman bids us so.”

Howard nodded and the crow flew to a nearby tree, where it’s siblings were now perched, and they watched as the poor man, dirty and sore and ripped red by brambles, pulled himself to his feet and gathered his resolve. There were so many questions, so many mysteries and riddles yet unsolved, but Vince was the thing and Howard clung to the memory of the man as he settled his pack upon his back and showed himself ready with the questions he felt needed answers most urgently.

“Who is the Ferryman? Does he have Vince?”

The answers came in a frightful black wave, a thunder from the murder that faced him, and Howard fought to keep his calm as his ears grasped at the words the crows flung.

“He delivers the dead.”  
“Vince’s father, our father.”  
“The man of the Styx.”  
“Vince’s father, our father.”  
“Retired though now, he has sent us this far.”  
“He fears for his son, that’s all he will tell.”  
“Go north, he bade us.”  
“Find the boy from the moon, he charged us.”  
“Vince’s father, our father.”  
“He delivers the dead.”  
“You must go north, Howard Moon. The Ferryman declares it.”

And when silence fell, Howard wondered what he had learned. He had long known of Vince’s strange childhood and had clung to those crayon-coloured memories fiercely, for they filled the void of his own missing youth, and he lay out the tales in his mind, piecing together the clues that he knew now would lead him to see who Vince’s father had truly been behind the masks and misdirection. 

“The Ferryman?” he said to the birds, and watched as they nodded as one. “He says to go north?” Another nod from the crows. “Then we’d best get moving.”

He spoke as if seeking his strength and straightened his spine and his shoulders so broad. He took in his hand the bag from Naboo and blinked with true wonder as the crows flew about in formation, some going ahead, some fanning behind, and the smallest upon his own shoulder sat. 

And so they walked and they flew, over days and days, until they happened upon... a cat.


	7. Chapter 7

In fairness to our poorly used protagonist, one must say at this point, he had been walking several days when the cat from a tree thought to launch itself bodily at his shoulder, so to catch the small crow that had made its home there. Any one of us might scream in that same situation, I most certainly would, and dear Howard Moon shrieked and begged for his life as both he and the cat (a silver grey creature) fell together to the hard forest floor.

“I shan’t kill you,” snapped the cat rolling free, and immediately licking her paw as if nothing undignified had befallen her despite the man sprawled at her feet. “Humans are so stupid, I swear. I only thought to take your bird for my tea.”

“Well you can’t have him either,” Howard argued with sudden anger. “He’s got so much to give!”

And at this the cat did startle and look up with golden eyes, aghast in her realisation.

“You can understand me?” she accused. “What sort of witch are you? By what magic do you speak to animals and understand what they say back?” 

The crows for their part kept silent, watchful from the trees, as Howard stammered that he had no clue as to how this gift had come upon him.

“It was always Vince’s gift,” he explained with such emotion that the cat came to sit in his lap as it purred, pushing against his palm until he stroked its silver fur. “He was raised by them, the animals; by leopards and snakes, birds and apes. He could talk to them all, it was amazing. He’s amazing. I just didn’t appreciate it until I left and realised what I was losing.” He looked down at his hands with a most dramatic melancholy. “I’ve only ever been able to speak to Bollo, and that was Naboo’s doing. He enchanted the ape so we could all understand him. I’ve never spoken to a cat before.”

The cat regarded him in the way a cat might, with suspicion and care and the gentle threat of claws, until she decided upon a question, and one which surprised him immensely. 

“Tell me more of Naboo? Is he the witch you work for?”

“Howard Moon works for no man,” came the quick and indignant reply, though fast amended. “Except, well, I do work in his shop. But he’s not a witch exactly. He’s a shaman.”

The cat considered.

“But he gave you this gift? He must care for you greatly to grant such a thing, for it is no easy feat. You must be a very special sort of human.”

The crows all leaned closer, curios too, but Howard shook his head, ashamed to have no answer that could satisfy them.

“He gave me something, but nothing that would explain this. Just a box that I can’t open and a stack of slightly squashed brownies I’m not brave enough to eat. And he doesn’t... care for me,” he admitted with a sigh so great that the sky itself seemed to weigh down on the slope of his shoulders. “He doesn’t even like me, to be honest. He just wants Vince back and thinks it’s my fault. No one really likes me,” he added softly, “if I’m honest. Howard Moon is nothing special.”

And within the woodland the air went still, as if every animal, tree and flower, were struck dumb at the sadness of such a truth. The crows shuffled uncomfortably, unused to dealing with such morosity, but the cat gave some thought to the matter before pressing her head to his chest with a purr. 

“Well I cannot see that,” she said, matter-of-fact. “You Are thoroughly likeable. Warm and soft and huggable.”

“I don’t like hugs,” he interrupted, but the cat dug her claws in and there was no removing her now.

“Ah, well perhaps that’s the problem,” she said to him snidely. “But I can teach you how. And as for being special,” here she clambered up to his shoulder, to slouch elegantly, whilst the smallest crow perched on the other side. “I can smell magic in your skin. Magic from several sources, for sure, but certainly some of it was with you at birth. Perhaps you are simply a late bloomer, or have been slow in finding your strength. Magic is a tricky thing. Even the moon above starts out small and thin. And it’s power may wane and be hidden at times, but it always returns. Now where are we going, Howard of the Moon?”

Howard was struck by the words and only managed a nod as he set forth again north. His feet were sore and his muscles weary and his heart was all in a flurry of fear and worry and confusion, but there was a new feeling too, or one he’d forgotten. He felt warm.

His hand did not tingle with cold, nor his veins trickle ice, and no shiver was found in his skin. So he told the cat, and the forest at large, of his journey to Vince, of his memories of Vince, his love, adoration, devotion to Vince. The words flowed with ease, like hot, honeyed tea, until they emerged from the woods, and beheld a strange city.


	8. Chapter 8

In a city of spires made of opal and quartz, where girls and boys danced through the streets with a whirl and of their skirts, Howard stood still and smudged, like grit that was not yet a pearl. Never before had he felt so untidy, so unremarkable, So unimportant, and with every eye focused solely on him. In the past he would have hidden behind Vince, claiming all the while to crave fame when what he truly wanted was to only be seen by just one person, but now there was no pretty distraction to hide behind, and he could summon no bluster to shield his heart from the glances and glares of the beautiful inhabitants of the strange city.

“Vince would love it here,” he whispered in awe, even as his bones trembled within his body, for all around were smooth, glittering buildings, the streets lined with lanterns of intricately coloured glass, and the ground beneath his feet a powdered blue, pink and purple, as if sand could be such colours, and his heart clenched that Vince was not beside him, witnessing the glory and the colour and the beauty that Howard knew he could not partake in. 

“Perhaps he is here,” purred the cat quietly from his shoulder. “You said he was north of home and you have been walking that way for near a week. Perhaps he is here. We should at least stop to check and to rest,” she said in a reasonable tone.

But the bird beside him rustled it’s feathers. “Vince Noir is not here. My master said to go north until there was no north left and that is what we must do. But if you grow weary of our company, Cat,” it said with a sneer and a beady-eyed stare, “you may leave whenever you please.”

The cat however, in response, yawned wide to show off her thin, sharp teeth, settled herself all the more securely on Howard’s sloping shoulder, and looked smugly at the crow. Howard had been unsurprised at the animosity between the pair, as different as they were in appearance and outlook - a bird and a cat, it was only to be expected - but he had been truly stunned by the moments when the two had turned the tide of their conversations from snideness to a sly, joking, comradery. It had been, he admitted, a lovely thing to watch, the two such different creatures growing toward friendship as they learned of one another. To Howard it seemed strangely familiar and despite the strength and happiness that had been growing within him along with the warmth in his veins over the last few days, the nagging home-sickness and nostalgia remained and tugged at his heart when he watched his two friends roll their eyes at one another and pretend they weren’t touching their tails behind his neck.

He couldn’t wait to introduce them to Vince when they eventually found him. To show off that he now too could speak the language of the beasts, for sure, but not only to preen. Howard wanted to share his new friendships with Vince, to rekindle the shared love of animals that had once been between them, back when they’d worked at the zoo. When they had been happier than they had grown to be. And whilst he knew the crow was correct in its assertion that they needed to press on north, there was merit in the cat’s suggestion that they rest and ask around as well.

He began to walk, trying to avoid the stares of the handsome city folk as he passed through their colourful masses, and the further he went, through the markets and dancing and free flowing wine, the more he heard of the news that had spurred the celebration: the queen’s son had found a consort. After so long and so thorough a search a worthy man had been found, or at least one that the prince loved, and he was a man with hair like black silk and skin as white as freshly whipped cream. The city was celebrating the joyful marriage with a week’s revelry and Howard felt his heart dip and glide as he heard the Prince-consort’s description repeated again and again. 

“It could be Vince,” he whispered, wishing he could feel more joy than the words betrayed. He could not bear the idea that Vince had run away to wed another, perhaps driven to it by Howard’s confession of love. 

The cat shrugged her shoulders with feline nonchalance but the crow still glared and shook its head, its eyes darting about to the rooftops where its siblings flitted and flew. A tension was building the further they walked and the birds cawed anxiously in warning, but the words were lost in the pretty city’s din. 

Howard, alas, heard it not, nor noticed the guards closing in from the alleys around. For despite his attempts to study his surroundings, once the thought of Vince had entered his head he was incapable of taking in the details around him (it was an eternal affliction) and the sudden tensing of his animal friends upon his shoulders was the only warning he received before he found himself surrounded by guards wielding bronze tipped spears.

“Halt you homeless, hedge-wearing freak!” the head of the city guard yelled in a voice that was familiar in its volume and violence. “How dare you enter our fair city during this time of celebration looking like you got humped by a blackberry bush and enjoyed it! I ought to run you through with my spear right now!”

Howard fell to his knees, the coloured sand sticking immediately to the grazed skin where his trousers had been ripped through. He hated the words that immediately escaped: “Please don’t kill me! I’ve got so much to give! I’m on a quest and I need to see the Prince-consort. Please? I’ve walked so far. I’m so hungry. So tired. Animals my only friends! Please don’t kill me!”

The plump leader of the guard seemed nonplussed and pushed his spear closer with great menace, until a guard behind tapped his shoulder and-

“What is it Dennis?”

Howard watched the interaction, not daring to hope, but Dennis, it seemed, was a sensible sort and soon enough Howard found he had an armed escort and was being marched in to an enormous hall of opal pillars and golden walls, and thrown before the queen’s throne. 

The throne itself was made of amber, seeming set rather than carved, and shone as if lit from within until Howard found himself overwhelmed by the beauty. At which moment he looked at the woman upon it and was seized by the most extreme chokes of his life, unable to move as he gazed on her face. 

She was golden as late summer sun, with hair floating round her like red autumn leaves, and Howard was quite overcome. 

“Hey ya Maj,” yelled the guard with little reverence. “We found this here tramp in the city, breaking the dress code, and the beauty code too. But Dennis,” he glared, ridiculous with power, “said not to kill him, in case he’s a well wisher from out of town.”

“I just thought it should be you who decides his fate, Your most glorious Majesty,” Dennis bowed with more proper deference, and then silence settled down as they watched and they waited, to see what the queen would say.

“And who are you?” she asked simply and slowly and Howard felt fear begin to claw up his throat.

“My name is Howard Moon and I’m,” he sighed, feeling foolish as he said it aloud, but pushing on all the same. “I’m on a quest to find the man I love. I heard tell of a man of great beauty and wondered if he were here.”

The queen’s porcelain face shifted slightly, the lip turning up in a smile, though Howard could tell, as small as it was, that it was the mocking sort, and he could not blame her. His clothing was torn and muddy, his hair was a tangle, and upon his shoulders sat two wild animals. How could such a man consider himself worthy of true love? Especially with one of beauty renowned.

“He is no guest of mine,” came the voice, like the first sigh of spring, but Howard shivered at the ice that seemed to sit on her skin. “Throw him away. He is making a mess.”

“No!” Howard whispered, confused when it echoed through the high-arched hall, until a familiar figure strode forth and he realised that the volume had come from another. Someone familiar, someone once similar, though they looked rather different now. “Harold Boom?”

The man had lost his moustache, which Howard thought was a shame, and was dressed in swirling robes and skirts of gold and the deepest red. His hair was a halo and Howard admitted that he was rather attractive, in a way Howard himself had longed to be and never achieved.

“Why what is it, my son?” cried the queen in understated shock, and the man who had once called himself Harold ran forward to stand before her, by Howard’s side, in an unexpected show of solidarity.

“Mother,” said the prince (for so he was). “You sent me on a quest to find my true love, how can you turn away from one who is seeking the same? And this man,” here he gestures to Howard with a fondness Howard did not quite understand given the crimp-off they had so viciously engaged in at their last meeting. “If it were not for this man, Mother, I might never have met my beloved. I am indebted to him and must help if I can. Call it a wedding present if you wish, but I must help Howard Moon if help may be had.”

“Moon, you say?” the queen considered with a tilt of her golden chin, sending sparks of light scattering out through the hall. “Very well, bring him through. And fetch towels and perfume. Let’s see what we can do.”


	9. Chapter 9

As pretty men and women in robes coloured gay stripped Howard of his clothes and whisked them away, he tried not to panic or shrink in his shame but was relieved by the bath that they drew all the same. And when he was safely submerged, and given leave to wash, the Queen reclined elegantly on a chaise of red cloth. 

The prince next appeared and on his arm was a man, and Howard’s heart fluttered for a moment... but it was not his Vince, no matter that his hair was black and his skin flawlessly pale. It was not his Vince, and he struggled for a moment to remember the fellow’s name, whom he had once warred with and almost been enamoured by.

“Lance Dior? I don’t understand. You and Harold? How are you here? I don’t... understand.”

They laughed, which Howard thought a touch unkind, and when they lowered themselves to the tiles beside the wide, warm bath, they did so with greater grace than Howard was sure he’d seen before, as if their edges had been softened, and their movements set to music which only he could not hear.

“The name’s Oread, actually,” said the man with black hair, though the longer Howard looked the less sure he was that it was a man. His skin seems not only pale but carved from white stone, and his hair, as close range, reminded Howard of slate, not like Vince’s soft silken locks at all. “Sorry about the whole Lance fiasco. I’d run away from my mountain, you see, but I was struggling with human form. I copied Vince Noir to fit in, and to find fame, but without realising what he was. Still, it turned out in the end.”

He still spoke smugly, with a curl around his lip that was not entirely benevolent, and Howard shivered, though the water was warm, for he did not understand what seemed so obvious to his companions. At length the prince seemed to understand his confusion and offered Howard compassion and a smile like the first rays of a morning sun.

“And I apologise for taking on your own skin for the sake of my quest. It was less than godly of me; if I had not been besotted with Oread as I was and intent on wooing him, I would not have acted so. I saw how he imitated Vince and so imitated the focus of his affection to gain my own ends. My mother sent me forth in to the world to find my true love you see, and when I encountered Lance Dior,” he chuckled with the warmth of a crackling fire as he looked upon his newly wed spouse. “I thought I was wooing a mortal, not a runaway nymph causing trouble.” They all laughed at that, Howard still trying to piece things together, his mind reeling at the thought he’d been hoodwinked and fooled. “You May call me Helios,” the prince concluded at length. “And you must tell us your tale, for I would help if I could.”

And so Howard told them of all he’d been through, of Vince’s rejection amid the thick snow, and how spring had appeared on the heels of his going, of the river and his trumpet, the garden and witch, the crows and the ferryman, the cat... and the zoo. It seemed strange to end his tale in the past lost abandoned but he could not help but rub his palm, and recall the sharp pain, as if it were the root of his troubles. 

“It is strange that you speak of this unforeseen thaw,” spoke the queen on the tail of Howard’s tale of woe. “For years you see, we were surrounded by ice, but now there has been a shift in this world. The ice has all but gone, the mountains are aching and islands have appeared that were not there before. At first we rejoiced to see sun again, but now I fear that Spring has become too strong. I tremble at what Summer may bring. Something has caused Winter to lose her interest in the world, where once her control was possessive, and the balance of the seasons has been broken.”

Her words were like chimes, and her voice rang sad, as if the worry caused her great melancholy, and Howard felt an inescapable urge to ease her fears and lonely burden.

“Ah yes, well actually,” he began, feeling immediate regret when all attention was turned upon him, yet knowing he had no choice but to continue. “Actually all of those issues, those ‘global phenomena’ so to speak, are actually the results of climate change, a very serious issue, and one that I just happen to be a bit of an expert in. Actually.” Howard felt his bluster puff and wheeze and lose its steam under the raised brow of the queen, but she was not unkind in her reply and Howard felt somehow that she appreciated his attempt at consoling her.

“Perhaps in some dimensions that is true,” she conceded, “but you are far from home now, Howard Moon, far from the mundane world, although...” she studied him again, longer, looking in to his soul with eyes of burnished gold. “I think you have always been a long way from home, Moon-child.”

“And where am I now?” Howard asked, though the words were free of his mouth before he had thought them. The queen smiled.

“This is the city of in-between, of the change of the season and change of the scene. This is the land where seasons meet and fade, of dawn and dusk, light and dark, where the sun and moon kiss.”

She lingered over those words and to Howard they seemed to drip from her lips like honey, thick and sticky. Howard wondered if it was somehow a trap.

“And who am I?”

Once again the words had slipped from his lips before his brain had a chance to give them permission but he did not wish them back again, for it was a question that had been building in his breast as he travelled, as if he had never truly known himself, through life’s fault and wilful ignorance, and now it would not be ignored. The queen smiled, her golden lips parting to show teeth like diamonds, and Howard straightened his spine and stood his ground, not an easy feat, lacking clothes as he was. 

“I would say,” she glanced at her son, her smile growing. “That you are a prince also. If a little one. I would say you are far from home, further than you could ever know. I would say you are a grown man still learning to be a child. I would say you are one very much in love, and not as alone as you perceive. And I would say...” she paused, looking deep in to his eyes, leaving him incapable of turning away. “That you need to go north, little prince, moon child.”

“That’s what Bryan Ferry said,” Howard answered, wondering at the fondness in the queen’s voice at the use of such endearing names. She nodded with great solemnity and gestured to the servants who stood in the shadows and Howard watched as they moved forward with towels and fine oils for his skin. 

“I would not wish to speak out against a FerryMan,” she whispered, then stood with a grace that bellied the eyes. “My son, you may make the arrangements you wish for your friend, but you may not leave the kingdom yourself. You are lately married and this quest has a feel about its edges. Howard Moon must go forward on his own.” 

At her words the prince and his mountain nymph stood and the smallest crow fluttered down from the window sill to perch on Howard’s bare shoulder. The queen smiled at the sight and Howard was reminded of her words to him, that he was not as alone as he was want to believe, and he felt his heart warm at the thought. Before he could thank her she was gone, sweeping from the room in a glitter of gems and golden skin, and Howard felt sheepish in the presence of the two men and the servants, bare as he was, though they paid it no notice.

He was dressed in fine clothes, stout and warm and sweetly sewn, and given food for the journey ahead. He was given a compass, worn and well used, and felt pride at the trust such a gift must bestow. And Helios looked upon him with pride at what he saw, and possibly envy as well, as he showed him his coach and wished him farewell, whilst Oreads smiled with a hint of desire in his mountain sky eyes and cliff-face carved features. He was given an open-topped coach, pulled by horses so tame they would do what they were told no matter how green their reinsman, and was waved away by the queen and her son and his lover, as pretty boys and girls danced on pink and blue sand, to a land that looked nothing like what he had known.

He travelled for days with the cat on his lap and the ten crows arrayed all around him, until one warm day, as the sky turned to grey, and the sun slowly set, a figure appeared on the road, a dark shape in the dusk, sword drawn and murder writ large on their lips.


	10. Chapter 10

Howard could all but hear the beats and percussion as the figure strode toward him, with a sway of their hips and a jangle of boots. His face was a twisted, melted, mask, his codpiece an arresting red, and if Howard had been stood and not stuck in the coach, he would have surely turned and fled. As it was he sat, frozen fast in his fear, but not so the cat who, upon his lap, stood and arched her spine, and spat her hatred and bile in the stranger’s direction.

“My old and former master!” she hissed in disgust, though fear sat thick in her fur like wax. “Do not face him, Moon child, you shall never win, and I shan’t go back, not to he, not to the-“

But she stopped, shrank away, for the figure approached, and the horses before began to paw, and to huff, as fear oozed around them and the sky shed the last of its light, until darkness surrounded the tableau with night. Howard looked up in confusion and dread as somewhere far off in the dead of the darkness came the ring of a bell. ‘Twas but the ghost of a knell, though clear, and sent on the night’s ice tipped breeze to declare it was midnight, against every odd. 

“That doesn’t make sense,” Howard spoke, mostly to himself, though the crows who were now gathered close round him nodded their agreement in turn. “It was barely six o’clock twenty minutes ago. I’ve got a keen sense of the passage of time, yessir, perhaps too keen, some have tried to say, but Howard Moon does not shy from old lady time, no sir, no sir. It can’t be midnight.”

The rambling words spilled from him, overflowing like suds from a washer filled with too much soap, but he could not stop them, not for want of trying. Howard could feel the fear beginning to best him, the sickly creep of it back within his veins, causing his hand to itch and his heart to pull tight agains the walls of his chest, and a tremble took hold in his bones. 

If it weren’t for the cat, who in her own fear did fix her claws front and back in the skin of his thighs, we can only imagine what our hero might have done, what might have become of his quest and his love. Instead he gave shout, which stopped the masked figure short, and the cat sprang a foot to prick right at the skin of his shoulder instead.

“It has to be midnight for him to arrive,” she hissed in his ear as the stranger walked forward once more. “Can’t be The Black Rider in mid-afternoon, he charges extra for that. And if he’s here... we’re doomed.”

The figure in black came to stand by the coach and lifted his blade, slicing clean through the air to rest but a hair from Howard’s poor bobbing throat. 

“Your money and your life,” came the words through the mask, burning like whiskey and with that self-same intoxication, and Howard shivered as his gaze met those of the Rider, a blue like the ink of his favourite BIC biro.

“Don’t you mean,” Howard said with great care, aware of the blade a mere breathe from his neck. “My money Or my life?” 

He tried for a grin but it ran rather thin as those eyes held his own without blinking. 

“No,” said the Rider without humour, voice burning thick in the night. “Hand over the cat, I’ll at least make it quick. Now, your money, and then your life.”

“Right,” Howard said, retrieving the purse only recently gifted from the InBetween queen. “Right,” he repeated as he handed it over, begging his brain to come through in his need. “So... how can you be The Black Rider when you haven’t got a horse?” 

With a beat, and a blink of the Rider’s blue eyes, the moment broke, tumbled to pieces, and the drums and percussion were gone. And with them the fear and deep shadows that had crowded so grimly, now faded to nothing, like grey, wind-swept sand.

“I- what?” the Rider hesitated, moving like a man caught quite off his guard. “Well I did have one, of course, but-“

But alas his explanation progressed no further as from the left with quite a holler flew a small, disturbing creature, an unkempt child of kindly feature. They lunged with such force upon the Rider Black that they fell to the hard road with a crunch and a crack, and as the dark stranger swore most rotten vile, the child looked at Howard with a mischievous smile. It was oddly familiar, slightly unhinged, and the horses whinged and whinnied their fear as the child cambered over them to the coach at the rear. 

“Don’t kill me!” Howard whispered when the child was near, “I’ve got so much to give!” Yet, he felt no fear. 

Such words, the very refrain of his life, slipped from his lips, yet did not seem... right.

“Don’t be daft,” said the child, “I’m on your side,” as grabbed up the reigns and, “come on then!” they cried. They whipped up the horses and sped down the track, past the fallen Black Rider still flat on his back. “Don’t mind Dad,” said the child, “he’s not all bad, but he’ll skin ya, and we can’t have that! An’ ya found me cat! So come back on to mine, have some tea, have a chat.”

Howard, for himself, clung tight to the coach, and against every odd, put his faith in his host.


	11. Chapter 11

Howard held tight as the coach sped along until out of the dark a crumbling castle came to shadowy view. And the child explained how their father and his band, had pillaged and thieved their way all through the land. Though they mostly gave the child whatever they pleased. 

“Especially animals,” the child enthused, patting the cat nestled now ‘gainst their chest. “I’ve got lots of animals. And I like making friends. You’re my friend now too, Howard Moon.”

And indeed, the castle the child called their home was quite filled with beasts of all species and sorts. There were rabbits and hedgehogs and mice in the crannies and a snake by the fire, Howard noted quite grimly. As the child tugged him near Howard looked at the dirt crusted in their short nails, and his poor, old soul hurt. For Vince had been so, his first day at the zoo, more than half wild, not quite man-made. They had both changed so much, and emotion took hold, until he sat by the fire, safe from the cold but not for his memories, not from his tears, and he felt most ashamed as he spilled forth his fears. 

“I don’t know where to find him,” he said mournfully, handing out his food to the child and their beasts. “I don’t know really where I’m going. I don’t know what I’ll face when I get there. I don’t know if Vince will even want my help. I don’t know what to do.”

“Hmm,” replied the child, the crease of their brow in the fire light casting strange patterns until they seemed other than what they’d appeared. “It will be hard, Howard Moon. Once there was ice all about, but now there are lakes and seas and very few know of the secret paths through. But if you’ve been told to go north then I think you should go. Do you know which way North is?”

Howard bristled as much as his position would allow, with crows upon his shoulders, a cat ‘pon his lap, and several fat rabbits relaxed on his feet, but the child’s face was open and innocent now, in the asking. He swallowed his sharp words and nodded instead, and handed the child his compass for inspection, which seemed far too large in the creature’s small hands. 

The night had stretched long as they’d spoken, and after inspection of the compass the child yawned loud and settled themselves in their bed on the floor. Howard did likewise, though he feared the return of the Black Rider and was only appeased when an owl turned its head and assured him it would keep watch to the dawn and give word if danger should dare to draw near.

And so Howard Moon slept, though much plagued by dreams, until just before dawn he was woken, not the owl or the Rider’s return, but by a paw, and a grizzled voice he’d not heard before.

“I’ve returned from my hunt and have heard the news,” came the voice, as Howard fought with his eyes that had no wish to open. “Is it true that you seek the raven-haired maiden? The one dressed in sequins with skin made of snow? I have seen her. I know where you need to go.”

And all in a start Howard felt wide awake and his eyes met a fox, grey muzzled and scarred, with eyes like the crows’, that saw too much and too far.

“That’s Vince,” he agreed. “Where is he? Please? He is precious to me, I must go to him.”

But the fox did not answer with speed. Instead he waited until the child woke and the animals had all gathered round before giving the news.

“I saw him, but I am sorry. He was sat on the sleigh of the Snow Queen. If you wish to find him, you must needs go to her.”

An ill-fitting hush fell over the castle as the animals murmured and sighed out their sorrow. They had grown quietly fond of the strange, scruffy, traveler and hated the thought he would meet such a one. For the Snow Queen was known to them all, if a little, for once their fine castle had worn a white gown of finely laced frost, almost all year round, though now there was naught but moss on the rocks and the ground. 

“I am sorry, Howard Moon,” said the child, sitting at his feet with the fox now in their lap. “The White Witch is not good at sharing her things. She may not give your love back again.”

Howard nodded at the bare faced truth, at the child’s concern, at the sad sigh of the fox, but was struck by a second revelation.

“You can speak to animals as well?” He tried to keep his voice free from disappointment but did not quite succeed, his heart sinking slightly at the thought that his recently got gift was more common place than first thought.

“Oh no,” said the child with a careless wave. “But foxes all speak human. It’s simply that they mostly don’t bother because humans are stupid. Or so he says.” They petted the fox lovingly and Howard repressed the urge to laugh lest it be taken the wrong way, for his fondness for the child had grown greatly, as had his protective nature, for there was something truly Vince-like about them.

“That explains Jack Cooper and the Crack Fox, I guess,” he said quietly instead, and spent some time after retelling the tales of the fox at the zoo and the urban fox with delusions of grandeur and greed. But at long last their words wound back to the issue at hand, to Vince, and the hopelessness apparent.

“Even if all seems lost, what else can I do but try?” Howard wondered aloud looking solemn, but the child smiled hopefully in reply.

“You could stay here with me?”

Howard lifted the corner of his lip sadly. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Little one.”

“Or I could go with you?”

Howard looked at the crumbling castle, at the animals who were the child’s companions, at the bed on the floor, only blankets and straw, at the wild independence that hid the youth and the fear, at the lack of care. 

“I will go and get Vince,” he declared with soft voice. “And then I shall come back for you. You have my word, and Howard Moon’s word is a promise.”

The child leapt in to his arms with a whoop, an intense sound of joy that startled the beasts arranged all around them, and Howard too, but as he began to bring a comforting arm around the child they pulled away, their excitement ignited. They called out to a reindeer, bigger than any Howard had ever seen, though it happily allowed the child to pet it, and then turned to speak to the fox that had settled himself by the fire.

“Would you ask Bae if he will take Howard across the water to the Snow Queen?”

“He says he will,” huffed the fox after informing the deer and Howard watched as the antlers were turned toward him, and eyes large and dark, that seemed a night filled with stars. 

“I will take you, Howard of the Moon, for you are strong of mind and soft of heart. And it will please me to see the northern lights once more.”

And so the arrangements were made, as the sun began to break and soon the owl called their attention with a shriek. 

“The Black Rider’s coming! He’s returning! He’s near! Flee now dear Howard! Flee far from here.”

Turning one last time to the child Howard’s heart seemed to ache, and he pulled from his pack, the treats Naboo had baked.

“Don’t eat these yourself, they’re not safe for children. But give some to your father, they may lighten his mood.”

“Oh, hash cakes! He’ll love these! Cheers, Howard! Please stay safe, save Vince, hurry back? I’ll be waiting.”

And with that Howard mounted the mighty reindeer, the cat on his shoulder, the crows round about, the sun in the sky, refusing his fear. They ran fast from the castle, across the bald plain, until they reached a wide ocean where no ocean had been. And instead of swerving or stopping Bae ran straight ahead, and as his hoof hit the water... it hit stone instead.


	12. Chapter 12

Howard held his breath in anticipation, fear building in his trembling frame, for swimming had never been his forte and he was haunted by the memory of near drowning in an ill-fated porpoise race a lifetime ago at the zoo when the Spirit of Jazz had first pressed its suit against him so seductively. Yet the breath and fear were jolted from him all at once as the reindeer’s cloven hoof hit the water and - a heartbeat later - the hidden stone path beneath its surface. 

As they followed the secret byway and minutes passed and the watery landscape sped past Howard tried to understand where he was and how such a thing could be, but it was beyond any land or sea he’d ever read of or known. There were islands dotted about, barren and treeless, and folks dressed in arctic furs waved as they saw him go. Some cheered and clapped and Howard wondered what or who they thought he was, for he could not see, from his position astride Bae, what kind of image he struck to those so stranded. For from the view of the small towns and tribes, what passed was a reindeer more mighty and large than any they had seen or dreamed of, and astride it was a man in flowing robes, dressed as if by a prince or well bestowed nymph; and with a cat on his shoulder, a sure sign of one with the gods on his side. They saw a man flanked by a flock of sleek crows, raising rainbows with each kick of his steed’s hooves, speeding across the untoward ocean, heading straight for the home of the goddess they praised. To those people Howard appeared as a paramour, for surely he was coming to the aid the Snow Queen and restore winter and return their lives to their natural course.

Uh, Bae?” Howard asked. “How exactly do you know where to go?”

At his question the great reindeer seemed to increase his speed and Howard clung on all the tighter but the great beast answered eventually.

“Many ages ago a similar thaw swept through the land, flooding the snow plains, drowning the unwary. The giants that roamed the land in those old days decided that something needed to be done and so sank these large stepping stones beneath the surface, that if such another thaw should occur, the careful would be able to find their way through. I had not thought to live to see it and yet as the world turns so its music repeats.”

Howard looked at Bae’s sure-footed leaping, at the speed that they were racing, and hoped against his natural negativity that Bae was indeed moving with care, for all he seemed to know just where he was headed.

“Do not fear, little man,” said the reindeer deeply, a warmth to his voice that put Howard to mind of aged scotch and musty library halls. “Simply hold tight and have faith. We shall reach the Queen and your lover so dear. Do not fear, little man, Howard Moon.” 

Howard nodded consent and so onward they went, the cat clinging tight to his shoulder, the crows coming to perch on Bae’s noble crown, their path ever northward through hours and hours until in a stupor Howard realised that the sun had set yet the sky was still bright, filled with the Aurora of the north, and a moment later, with a mighty thud, they were no longer racing across the stones and sea, but back on the land though a land for which Howard was unprepared. 

The colours of the sky, blues, purples, and greens, reflected on the snow below, and the path that they took, surrounded by pillars and tall shards of ice, was barren and frozen, featureless and bleak. He kept expecting to see a castle or mountain, any place that was worthy of holding Vince captive, but for an age there was nothing until, at last, just as his bladder was bursting and the sun was rising, there came in to view not a mighty mount or sparkling palace but a hut… made of wood worn to silver and black, with a chimney in the roof, but no door in the wall.

Howard blinked. He could not quite fathom what he was seeing. Of all he had seen through his long and strange journey the little doorless hut was the strangest he’d seen. The smallest black bird fluttered down to his shoulder and joined him in looking up at the strange ribbon of smoke that showed life lived within the curious walls. 

“Oh no,” said the crow sneered, if a beaked creature could actually curl its lip. “I’ve heard about this berk.”

“What?” Howard asked in a muddle, for want of something better to say. “What berk? What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s just say,” replied the bird, with great trepidation, “that you’re about to hear more about the crunch.”

And at that there was a crash from within the strange hut, then a second of stretched time later, and a strange water bubble pop in Howard’s ears, and he and the cat and the crows and large Bae were within the small walls and faced with a spectre both striking and strange. 

“Oh, brilliant,” came a nasal voice deep in the shadows. “Trust the failed zoo keeper to bring the menagerie with him. Like I don’t have enough to do without giving sage advice to clueless storybook heroes.”

The figure stepped forward and Howard tried not to quake. “Who… who are you?”

“I… am Saboo, that’s who. And for you, Howard Moon, it would seem it is crunch time.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I bring this chapter, a simple offering. I hope it is sufficient.

Our dear heroine, our Howard, correctly quaked where he stood, and prepared to be duly subdued, yet felt strangely not scared to be faced with the figure of the strange man Saboo - who was no taller than he, and less muscled too. The desire to submit and to grovel was finally past, and he stood straight in his robes as he gazed ‘round the hut.

“You know who I am?” Howard asked, striking a pose and looking down the length of his rather long nose with distrust at the amber skinned man. “How?”

He expected to be told that the obviously occult man had in fact read the name on his luggage, or that Naboo had written ahead, something mundane to ruin the magic of the moment as was so often the way in his life, but instead the shaman struck a pose of his own, arms wide in the cramped space of his hut, and the air seemed to fizz, overwarm as it was, and Howard felt the breath leave his lungs in a rush.

“I read it in the stars,” Saboo announced without humour. “I read it in the thaw and the current of the wind. The child of the moon has come to call Winter to account and set the world back in her seasons.”

“Oh.”

Howard could think of nothing else to say at that moment. Instead he glanced round about at the fire in the corner, the cauldron just boiling, the solitary chair at the one-person table, the shelves and the shelves filled with magical items, and books aged and weighty. This was not the home of some hobby healer, some weekend witch doctor, or Sunday sorcerer, and Howard felt strangely at his ease. He could appreciate a man who knew his craft and played the part, and he appreciated old books more than almost anything in the world, and so decided that even if the man himself was rather a dick, to be frank, he trusted Saboo and tried to appear studious as the man spoke again.

“Oh, indeed,” he smiled thinly, stroking his beard. “But come, sit, you are about to meet the Crunch and you are in need of sustenance. Take the seat by my fire and tell me your tale.”

Unsure though he was who or what ‘The Crunch’ might be, Howard nodded and accepted the strange hospitality and edged toward the one rickety chair. Once seated he felt little better for his courage could only buoy him so much, and the more he slowed down the more he could see how huge was the task that faced him, and how little he knew of what was to come.

“I am seeking Winter, I suppose,” Howard stuttered as Saboo served him tea and then sat upon a cushion supported by the air with unnatural ease and frozen current biscuit in his hand. “I have to find...” he hesitated at the weight of the statement to come, and shivered at the ice the mere thought of the name conjured. “I have to find the Snow Queen.”

Saboo, for all his straight backed bravado, hissed at the name, and the cat, reclined by the fire, did the same and once more that old fear tried to crawl to the fore, but it stopped when with a nudge of it’s nose the mighty reindeer Bae gave him comfort. “I am…” he began again. “We must go North, you see. We must go north until there is no north left to find. So I’ve been told.”

“And who is ‘ We’?”

Howard shifted, wishing to signify the animals all around him, but did not care for the smirk that marred the man’s handsome features, an attempt, perhaps, to hide the fear he had displayed at Winter’s name said aloud. But Howard was not cowed by the sneer, only rather annoyed and unimpressed. As was, so it seemed, the smallest crow (who Howard thought of as his closest friend after Vince) who ruffled their feathers in a rather indignant way and glared beadily at the shaman as only a crow can. 

“Our Ferryman has sent us to guide and protect, to go to the North, to where the world turns, to seek out the child of the sequins and night, the stars and the dark, the velvet and snow. You can hear me, Shaman, and you know what’s at stake. The Snow Queen has stolen the Vince Noir away. She has broken her pact with my master, who knows what else she might now break.”

A silence rang out then, as thick as the snow that sat round the shack and Howard watched the strange amber eyes of the arrogant mystic widen in fear and comprehension. The crow, it transpired had spoken straight to his mind, a magic Saboo was unused to, and it was a weighty, heavily pregnant pause before the barest of nods was received.

“And what would you ask of me?” Saboo the shaman asked softly, the pomp now fallen away from his lips. “I predict the future and warn of the Crunch. I cannot fight this battle. What would your master have me do?”

The crow once again cocked its head and every other bird did the same until even Howard and the cat were unnerved by the sight, but they replied in good measure and soon enough.

“You must have something to help Howard Moon. There must be some spell or weapon or potion you know, to ensure him his victory over the snow?”

Once again Saboo spread wide his long arms, but this time in defeat, though he did summon another plate full of biscuits and a fresh pot of tea.

“I can give Howard Moon nothing that he does not already possess. Everything he needs for victory in this challenge he already holds, he simply needs to believe. There is nothing I can give…” he paused once more, as if considering his own fate before continuing in a tone more courteous and kind. “But there is perhaps, one thing I can take.” And before Howard could think to escape, or plead for his release, the shaman had grasped his hand and begun to chant, drawing the last of the wicked mirror’s magic from him until it fell to the table with barely a sound, and Howard felt so free that he fell to the ground He had never felt so light, so capable, so whole, and he stared at the speck that had held him in thrall.   
“What is it?” he asked as he scrambled back to his seat, the cat coming to sit in his lap, a comforting weight.  
“A shard of enchanted glass,” Saboo replied. “One of the last. It magnifies all hateful thoughts of the victim it pierces. I have searched for each piece far and wide. But the last two pieces… I fear they reside…” He did not continue, there was no need. Howard now understood how Vince had long been besieged, what evil had struck them both and stolen their happiness, stolen their years.

“ I have to go to him. I have to find Vince,” Howard whispered, his well worn refrain, but he finally felt sure that he could and that when the time came to save him, he would.

“You will. But first eat your fill, drink and be satisfied, and then go,” the magic man told him, sounding tired and frayed, more human and worn down with care than before. “Go free your beloved. You shall find him in the castle around the next hill. But be warned, Howard Moon, the situation is grave, the price will be high, but you will only fail if you fail to try.”


	14. Chapter 14

Vince stared down at the enchanted shards of ice, so sharp, too glaring in the white snow light, and could not bring himself to touch. They were too sharp, would cut his skin, he felt, he knew, and leave scars that would mar him, make him uglier than even his current sorry state, and stain his clothes with blood until he was not fit to be seen by even the snow flakes that fell so unfeeling around him.

The Queen, the Witch, he knew not her name, had at first been doting, and dear in her care, but as Vince’s skin had turned from pale to periwinkle blue to a colour even Vince could not name, she had withdrawn from him though he had begged her to stay, desperate for some small comfort, some small sign of love from the woman whose hooked nose and iceberg eyes gave his heart the smallest hum of hope. But soon the hope was frozen by the ice that had surrounded and seeped through his soul, shutting out any chance of the love the Winter Spirit had tried to give, and he did not see her growing grief.

 _‘She saw you for what you are,’_ a voice whispered in his head. _‘She saw your lack of mind, lack of heart, lack of intelligence, lack of wit. And she has abandoned you for it.’_

For the Queen, upon seeing the colour of strange sprite at her feet had seemed, if at all possible, to turn all the more to ice, had refused to stand within reach of his shivering grasp, and had hurriedly enchanted the shards that had once made up the frozen floor of the Snow Queen’s ballroom.

“Find the spell hidden within these pieces,” she told him with a voice like the whisper of a bitter winter wind. Find the spell child, I cannot find it for you, cannot save you, but perhaps the words can. They are old words. Healing words. But my fingers cannot touch them, my lips may not utter them, but perchance, dear child, your lips may.”

The woman’s words echoed through his mind with such an appearance of truth that he could not deny them. Such doting desire sang out from her mouth, from her eyes, as she spoke, that Vince – ever a child desperate in his need to do what he was told by those he wished to be loved by – crawled across to the pieces to do what he was bid despite the cold in his bones that made such movement so hard.

He looked up but once, in search of approval, but the Snow Queen was gone, had fled on the ice-laden wind, and Vince had been alone, overcome with the cold, with deep, growing, dread, and with naught else but the words in his head, and they beat a snide and insidious refrain: _‘You will not succeed. You shall not find the spell. Vince Noir cannot read. Vince Noir cannot spell.’_ And it was true, and in what remained of his heart he knew he would never be free.

Days passed by, though Vince could not count them, saw no change in the sky, in the world around him, trapped as he was in the castle of ice. He stared at the letters, the razor sharp shards, but saw nothing at all, and felt even less. Until distant and strange, came a shaking through the floor of doors broken down, and feet running forth, and a hazy word he was sure he recalled.

“Vince? Vince?"

But he could not move, seemed one with the ice, and the voice seemed so distant, a warm, well worn memory. He closed his eyes one final time, and surrendered to the cold that had eaten him whole.

"My Vince, what has become of you?”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nearly the end now. Thank you for sticking with me through this. Apologies for the length of the chapter and the time it has taken to get to this point.

“Stop!”

Howard paused, frozen not only by the sudden increase in the chill in the air but by the words and their tone as well. Howard felt his terror swell, and clung to the love he had in his last breath found. The exhaustion had near overwhelmed him, the cold having seeped to the depths of his bones, and even as his heart was a flame undeterred, still he paused where he knelt, now exposed and alone. He had been tugging at Vince’s frigid form, overwhelmed with emotion he had no way to convey: overcome with relief at having found his friend at long last; desperate to raise some life from him; overcome with grief at the stillness; and at the frosted irises devoid of life or any recognition. But at the sound of the voice he recoiled, pushed by the pale and unfeeling sound, and looked up at the swirl of snowflakes that suddenly filled the cavernous room of ice. 

“Stop!”

From within the eddy of snow, so it seemed to our hero, came the face of a woman both righteous and proud, but one unlike any Howard had seen or dreamed of. Her lips, her skin, her eyes, all seemed beyond white, glacier opal, the arctic plain by moon light. Nowhere to be seen was the creamy white that Howard adored and idolised, this white was something beyond, but the round, pearl cheeks, stalactite nose, and overlarge eyes in such a long, sharp face, near overwhelmed him, a haunting mirror of the man who’s still form he held tight in his hands. 

“I can’t stop,” he whispered softly, the words near lost beneath his emotion and moustache. “I’ve come so far to find him. I know who you are, but you have to release him, you have to let him go.”

The woman smiled, sadly, and the tears in her eyes shone like ice crystals until Howard, who had been prepared to view the queen as the purest kind of villain, felt pity for her without knowing why, but still refused to remove his hands from his friend’s frozen skin.

“You know who I am?” she asked, voice still cold but not unkind. “Truly so? And who are you, to come so far? To speak to your queen in such a tone?”

“Howard,” he told her, feeling his firmness return as he recalled himself and spoke his name aloud. His shoulders squared and his spine uncurled as he turned his eyes to meet the woman formed from fog and snow. “I am Howard Moon. I am Vince’s best friend, he is precious to me. I love him most dearly, and I will be taking him home.”

He expected to be struck down where he stood, for such confidence was a foreign thing, and when no smiting came his chest tightened with fear and he felt sure he would be yelled at or that some beast would appear to beat him, but instead the queen smiled again, chuckled darkly, who with no true happiness, and took several delicate steps forward, her feet floating above the floor as she moved toward him.

“Howard Moon,” she mulled, gazing at him thoughtfully, her eyes moving to Howard’s hand, where it had begun to stroke Vince’s silken hair. “And what planet did you fall from, Howard Moon? For you are certainly not of this earth. No mortal has stepped foot within these walls and lived. Where are you from? To which god do you belong?”

Struck dumb by such a question Howard stared in confusion but the queen seemed so serious and he glanced toward the doorway of the palace and saw his friends the cat, the crows, and the dear deer Bae, standing in the doorway, too full of fear to enter, looking on in wonder and fear. 

“I belong to no god,” Howard replied, though the conflict within him was rising. “Except maybe Vince.” It was made as a joke, a jest on the fly, but no further smile came, only tears from white eyes, and he instinctively reached out toward the woman, though she seemed to be no real woman but something more something strange. And a question was pulled from his lips. “Who are you?”

“I...” the creature hesitated, looking toward Vince with affection and fear and emotions unclear. “I am the Snow Queen. I am Winter. I am... I am every unique snowflake, I am the smell of snow, the frost on the grass, the rain that dances on the rooftops, the lights in the sky, the endless whiteness. I am... I am a mother...”

Such words hit Howard in his soul and in his veins sang a memory of pain. He had appreciated words from his first memory and breath and the poetry she wove of such beauty and death with so few words, with emotion, made him crave, made him want. He could never resist a good story and the love in the eyes of the queen made him blush, though it was not aimed at him, and he sensed at the truth and so asked, in a rush:

“And who is Vince?”

“He is my son,” spoke the Snow Queen, and it seemed to Howard that she sought to reach out, though did not, or could not and so held her own pale arms tight. “Vince Noir is my son, a creature of my own womb, gotten me by a human lover. But alas, Howard Moon, humans are so fragile. He attempted to stay beside me but his body grew weak with cold and he... died. Do not think me entirely devoid of emotion, sirrah, but as the barer of winter I have brought death to many. It has nearly numbed me, but I grieved my beloved’s death. In my way.”

Howard fought to repress his shiver at the dark intonation, of such a deep and sad statement, and wondered how dangerously the personification of winter might mourn. He could see her emotion, as plain as the dawn, and yet she claimed to feel nothing. He wondered how often she’d been told so,for how long, to believe it so strong. 

“When the child was born I thought to rejoice, that I might no longer be alone. I had been so very long alone,” her voice was an icy sigh of despair. “But it was born... he was born... and I could see that it was not to be. The child glowed with such human radiance, such life... and something more - something magical beyond my ken or knowledge - but the child was not of my kind. It began to die.” 

The words hard turned dispassionate in the frigid air, hanging like snow too light and too formless, to fall, but Howard knew better. He knew the learned trait of disguising one’s need and one’s sadness and love, and he saw where the woman before him had pulled her true feelings so close to her heart out of fear. He nodded, a bare thing, and was rewarded with the barest ghost’s shadow of a smile.

“I attempted to care for the child,” she continued. “He was so full of light, as if I had birthed from my womb the very Norðurljós themselves, but he was also human, too human, and one evening his breathing... it began to stutter. His blood slowed, too warm for the ice of his mother’s home. His soul began to depart.”

Overcome with grief now, at the mother’s pained words, Howard pressed his forehead against the still form of his Vince, wrapping his arms around the slender, cold, shoulders and pressing his forehead to the nape of his unmoving love. Was Vince’s blood pumping now, he wondered, or had his journey been for naught? And what would the Snow Queen do if she discovered she had killed her child a second time?

“As I saw his soul fading I followed it,” the Queen continued, watching Howard’s embrace of her son. “But was met at the Underworld by the Ferryman, who had already taken my child in to his boat. I begged him, I threatened him, I offered him all within my power but he would not yield. I fell down in despair, sure all hope was lost, but at that moment the child began to cry, pitifully. It was not only the body I held in my arms crying but the soul in the boat as well, and the Ferryman was stunned, for it should not have been possible, would not have been for any true mortal. And it was the child he took pity on. He scooped up the soul, placed it back in the body, and I held my child to my breast. But alas.”

Howard wished to turn away but found he could not. The Snow Queen’s face was frozen in a way he had not seen before, by her memories and her grief rather than the ice that formed her being, and before he could think to stop himself he began to weep on her behalf, knowing now what would come next in the sorry story. 

“The babe began to fade again, in my embrace. The Ferryman took it from me and even his unhuman touch was not so unkind as mine had been, to my own son, and so he agreed to take the child and give it life, on the agreement that I not interfere. He was banished for the crime when it became known, and I gave him what aid I was able, the treasures of those who died in my storms, protection from harm as well as I could, but he accused me of bargaining for the child again, bade me go, said the child was not of my kind. And when the child left the Ferryman’s watchful eye he tried time and again to lure him home and to keep me absent.  I came so close to recapturing my child so many times - I only wished to know him! - but every attempt seemed to fail, even when he came to the Arctic of his own volition I could not seem to touch him. He burned too brightly, too warmly for me to draw near. But I could not be denied forever, and my child grew strong in his magic and one fateful day I felt it: ice had entered my son’s heart. Soon he would be ready to come home.”

Howard gazed at the goddess through his tears, wondering how one so cold could speak with such warmth, such emotion, and when her voice broke, like the ice on a pond at the first sign of thaw, he almost felt drawn to embrace her as well.

“But you see,” she gestured at the man in his arms, what was left of him. “I merely trapped him, ensnared him, and even with ice in his heart and his eyes, with my blood in his veins, he is still what I named him, He who conquered the dark. The very lights above, the Norðurljós, the rainbows that dance through the blackest nights of winter. He is a godschild, my child, but not one of my kind. And there is no coming back for a child thrice slain.”

Howard could barely see through the torrent of his tears but through the haze he saw the shadows slink in to the light flooded chamber where such shade could not exist. The shadows swirled up like mist, rose up straight, became solid, until there stood on either side of him two beings, one a terrifying stranger, and one vaguely familiar: the Ferryman, the past and present.

“No,” his voice cracked, barely a wisp of a sound but it caused them pause in their approach and gave Howard courage to continue. “No! No! You can’t have him! No! No! No. No! No. NO!”

The one dressed in white stopped completely, but the one wrapped in grey stepped forward anew, and Howard clung to his Vince, not sure what else he could do.

“No!” he screamed out again, in grief and in rage, he had come so far, learnt so much, it could not all have been for naught. His whole world could collapse if need be, he decided, but Vince needed to be saved, the last ice needed to thaw.

He pressed his tear stained face to Vince’s, kissed the blue lips as he sighed, turned to the immortal beings, blinked the moisture away from his eyes.

“Take me. Let Vince live. I’ve got so much to give.”


End file.
